Because Punishment Is All He Has
by Birnan Midniht
Summary: It was a familiar question, one he had heard many times before and gotten rather good at not answering. But, in circumstances like these, even Hatake Kakashi couldn't lie to himself.


_They couldn't see what he saw, couldn't possibly understand because they didn't have_ their _blood and_ those _memories staining every waking moment. They couldn't understand and they refused to give him what he deserved._

 _So, when they weren't looking, he took it._

 _And he hated it._

 _Because it would never be enough._

 _(And it would be all he'd ever get.)_

 **X**

There was a man sitting on one side of the bench. He was slouched, a dirt-stained cloak thrown about his shoulders and a hood pulled low over his face. It was dark and the lights were a touch too far away, but the boy didn't seem to mind, his legs kicking empty air.

Having long since given up on ignoring the child, the man sighed. "Shouldn't you be in bed or something?" Why he hadn't asked that question ages ago, he couldn't guess.

"I told you," the boy huffed, a hint of what might have been scorn leaking into the words, "I'm waiting for tou-san."

"Then wait inside."

His head shook once, twice. "Tou-san told me to go home."

"Then go home."

This time, there was no doubting the scorn. "I want to wait here, so I can see him when he comes out. And," he added sharply, "if I'm caught inside, someone will take me home." He then sighed as if the man's very existence was a challenge unworthy of all his three or so years.

This was yet another thing the man had gotten used to in the last two hours and, in all honesty, it amused him. He'd like to see what the boy would do if faced with a certain group of miscreants...

The child leaped to the earth, looking down the street before turning back around. "Why are you here?" The little face danced in front of his, two dark eyes in a shadow-tinted moon.

"Waiting," the man said simply.

"For what?" There was curiosity now, the same curiousity that had initied the conversation.

The man didn't answer and the child, more used to this silence now, took it for the response it was - unlike the first time, which, suffice to say, was best left unrepeated. He had a feeling that the dirt-stains weren't going away without some S-rank level scrubbing.

"Why don't you go in then?" The boy asked.

"I'd rather not."

The sentence wasn't even finished before he was asking "why?"

"Well," the man began at length, each word sounding as if it was pulled from between his teeth with pliers, "I don't like hospitals."

It was a straight, honest answer and the boy seem to look for said pair of pliers. He didn't see any and was suitably suspicious. "Really?"

The man - unknown to the child - gave an eye roll. "Yes," he said, dry as a Suna desert, "really."

There was more squinty-eyed staring and then th boy's eyes went wide as saucers. "You're scared of them!" He squeaked, terribly surprised and confused because, slow or not, the man was still a grown up and the boy wasn't so stupid as to think that grown ups got scared.

The next silence was telling.

"You are," he whispered, rushing to climb back onto the bench and get a better look, dislike of proximity forgotten in the face of this strange new creature. "You're scared of them!" He repeated, just as hushed as before. He leaned close, as if afraid something terrible would happen if someone overheard. "Why?"

Strands of hair, greyed with age, caught the moonlight as the man leaned away. The child immediately deemed him ancient and was even more confused - and maybe even a little scared. Hospitals must be truly terrible if they could scare someone so old.

"Why?" He asked again, firmer, leaning closer.

"Uh," the man was taken aback by the intensity. Three year olds really weren't supposed to act like that. "No reason."

"There has to be a reason," snapped the boy, the instinct for secrecy giving way to irritation as the man's idiocy once again made itself known. "Kaa-san says that people who say that are liars!"

He flinched openly, but the boy either didn't notice or didn't understand.

"So tell me," the younger was insisting.

The silence was back, but it was a thinking silence - Kaa-san had lots of those and the boy knew to wait.

"Sick people go to hospitals," the man finally said, quiet enough that the boy had to angle his head. "Injured people go to hospitals... Dying people go to hospitals."

"You're scared of dying?" He guessed.

The man's head shook. "People go to hospitals to get cured. The doctors and the nurses heal them, they ease their pain, and they keep families together... Sometimes, they even make families..."

The boy's brow was furrowed and he had started to lean away, eying his companion like he was crazy.

"Everytime my body breaks, I go into a hospital and come out fixed." The tone was a new one, something the child had never heard before and couldn't name.

But he _did_ know that the man had lost all his marbles - and, at some point, found a bunch of rocks and tricked himself into thinking that they would work the same.

Which affirmed the boy's previous thought that his bench partner was an idiot.

He said as much and the man laughed.

He laughed for a while. He laughed for longer than he should have - and it had the same strange undertone as his words. Although, the boy would have said it was too... Rough - as if every sound was pain.

Then a familiar voice was cutting across the strange laughter. "Kakashi!" It sounded stern and the silence that followed was immediate.

"That's Tou-san," said the three year old, hopping off the bench. He stopped after taking a few steps and looked back. "You should go inside so they can fix you - again. Kaa-san's in there and she isn't nearly as sick as you." _No one_ was as sick as that old coot.

The man leaned forward, head tilting just so, in a way that gave the boy his first real glimpse of the mask that covered his companion's lower face and the metal that gleamed over one eye. The boy couldn't see the other one.

"That's just it," said the man, soft and rushed because Tou-san was watching them very, very carefully. "I don't want to be fixed. They can't fix me, they shouldn't fix me. _I don't deserve it_."

Had he talked like this in the beginning, little Kakashi would have waltzed right into that hospital without delay and asked for someone to take him home. But now, well, now he was just annoyed.

Seeing his expression, the man added, "you'll understand. It will be years from now, but you will."

The boy scowled. "I don't want to." Then turned away, marching back towards Tou-san and more than ready to go home. Besides, he still had to make his bed so Kaa-chan could see. He'd gotten good at it while she was away and couldn't wait for her to give him that smile - the one that seemed to say, 'I couldn't ask for a better son'.

The response to his parting words was a silence too quiet for little Kakashi to hear, too quiet and too close to breaking because _of course_. _Of course he didn't want that_. No one wanted that. Not little Kakashi, not young Kakashi, not grown Kakashi.

But it wouldn't matter how many times little Kakashi said those same words, the dice were long since rolled and he would understand.

He would understand and he would eventually end up tripping over that same mission and he would end up right where he was now and he would still be wishing that time wasn't carved in stone and he would be begging the earth, the stars, the gods - he would be begging for a chance at redemption.

And maybe someday (in another life, another world), someone or something would care enough to listen.

Then maybe - just maybe - he'd be able to save them.

* * *

 _A/N: Wha'd ya think?_

 _Too confusing? Too simple? Did I miss the mark entirely? **More importantly** , are the genres correct?_


End file.
